Family Counseling Archives - Page 6 of 11

You May Be Grieving

By Emily Phifer, M.S. MFT "Grief" Defined At its heart, grief is simply defined by pervasive and significant sorrow over the loss of someone, or something important to us. Grief can result from: losing a loved one, a pregnancy, a job, severed relationships, broken hopes and dreams, instability, shattered ideals, or the loss of abilities we once had. Grief can affect us in many different ways, including physical exhaustion and decreased energy, mental distraction and haze, decreased social energy to connect with others, sadness and loss of hope, and an inability to...

Up in Smoke: Facing the Fire Threat on Top of the Rest

By Emily Phifer, M.S. MFT Approaching Burnout How are we to manage the fatigue of yet another threat (that of fires), on top of the Covid-19 specter which has been looming large for the past 6 months, and the racial upheaval and political unrest fueling division in our country? If you’re approaching burnout right about now, wondering how to keep putting one foot in front of another, you’re not alone. With the recent added trauma of the devastating West Coast fires, this year has just served up yet another whopping stressor to...

The Buy Nothing Project: Grace Given and Received

By Emily Phifer, M.S. MFT No Strings Attached During the quarantine and pandemic over these past 5 + months, I have found a new joy in giving and receiving. In the course of joining a local “Buy Nothing” group, I found myself participating in the communal shared (virtual) space of stating needs or wants, offering up gifts for the taking, and expressing desire for certain items that would otherwise go to waste or simply take up space. There is tangible excitement in finding items that I might need or want for my...

We learn a lot from mistakes. But what about successes?

Wendy Edwards, AMFT [perfectpullquote align="full" bordertop="false" cite="" link="" color="" class="" size=""]I reached a fairly ripe age without ever being called a risk-taker.[/perfectpullquote] And yet, 12 years ago, I decided to take a big one. Many years beyond higher education, I joined a cohort of 20- and early 30-somethings in a Master’s Degree program at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena. I was warned the licensure process was a long one, full of much hoop-jumping. But, ultimately, if I persevered, I could become a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in the state of California. Seeds of...

PLAY: Promoting Lifetime Achievement for Youth

By Rubina Haroutonian, M.A., LMFT, RPT What is Play? It's easy for adults to underestimate play as merely an insignificant or juvenile way for children to pass the time. In actuality, play is a core foundation for the long-term developmental stages of healthy childhood to adulthood. According to the Association for Play Therapy, play is a way of “being with the child that honors their unique developmental level and looks for ways of helping in the ‘language’ of the child, play.” Play is how children express themselves, with the toys used in play...

You May Be Grieving

Up in Smoke: Facing the Fire Threat on Top of the Rest

The Buy Nothing Project: Grace Given and Received

We learn a lot from mistakes. But what about successes?

PLAY: Promoting Lifetime Achievement for Youth

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